![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/orange-golf-ball.jpg\" "\\"orange")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt is a blindness like that which inspires my rant.\u00a0 Things which appear so stark and obvious to me, are apparently not so obvious to everyone and I can’t fathom it.<\/p>\n
There has been so much “world” news lately.\u00a0 Right now I am addressing the astounding happenings in northern Africa.\u00a0 Specifically Libya.<\/p>\n
This morning a BBC correspondent was interviewing a retired gentleman from Libya who was prepared to take up arms against Colonial Gaddafi (does anyone else remember when it was spelled with a Q? a K? but I digress…).\u00a0 The man is not a soldier and is not going to fight Gaddafi to gain power, in fact, he has counted the cost and expects to pay with his life.\u00a0 He fights for his country.\u00a0 For freedom.\u00a0 He will join students, accountants, farmers, oil workers, basically plain men, all ready to die for their country against the current government which oppresses and threatens them.<\/p>\n
Is this ringing a bell with anyone yet?\u00a0 Wait, there’s more…<\/p>\n
How did they gain momentum to join rag tag forces together in opposition to an oppressive government?\u00a0 Facebook, twitter, cell phones.\u00a0 These are the new media for grass roots efforts. On this<\/em> continent, a “few” years back (ok centuries) some ordinary people used printed pamphlets that they passed around.<\/p>\n The “rebels” of Libya are out armed.\u00a0 They have nothing really.\u00a0 The government has planes and tanks and all manner of weapons to put down an armed attack.\u00a0 So a group of nations appealed to the United Nations and asked for help for the ‘”rebels”.\u00a0 They asked for a “no fly zone” to be imposed to stop Gaddafi’s government from bombing the country.\u00a0 Who was it that requested this help?\u00a0 The Arab League.<\/p>\n Sounds like an legit invitation to me.<\/p>\n The UN resolution passed, it was a Thursday night, the same night Gaddafi was on his nation’s radio threatening all who opposed him.\u00a0 He promised to find them, in their bedrooms, in their closets and when he found them he would kill them.<\/p>\n So what is making me see red?\u00a0 Us.\u00a0 US.\u00a0 The U.S.\u00a0 President Obama gave a speech trying to defend our participation in a no fly zone and aid to the “rebels”.\u00a0 And, in my mind, he did a pretty poor job defending it.<\/p>\n He tried to make a case for it being in our best interests.\u00a0 It’s probably not on a strictly national level.\u00a0 Not really.<\/p>\n Why didn’t he say: We are doing this because we were asked, nay, begged to help.\u00a0 By the Arab League and by the people of Lybia.<\/p>\n Why didn’t he say: We are doing this because the United Nations agreed it should be done.\u00a0 Because our allies agree.<\/p>\n Why didn’t he say:\u00a0 We are doing this because we can remember when we<\/em><\/strong> were the regular, untrained, Joe Shmoe standing up to THE power of the world at the time and fighting for independence and freedom?<\/p>\n Now do you see a connection?\u00a0 Between the Libyan people and the Colonists?\u00a0 The Americans?\u00a0 Those who opposed King George?\u00a0 King George III?\u00a0 Anyone remember American History?\u00a0 Anyone listening to the interviews of the Libyan people?\u00a0 Doctors, professors, retired men and women, fighting a lopsided battle for freedom.<\/p>\n And we can’t make a decent case for why we would help?\u00a0 If<\/strong><\/em> we should help?\u00a0 Really?<\/p>\n Like green and orange, it seems so obvious to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NPR.\u00a0 National Public Radio.\u00a0 I’m hooked.\u00a0 Especially to BBC World News.\u00a0 I listen almost every morning.\u00a0 But lately I have been seeing red during the broadcasts.\u00a0 Actually, I am seeing red over some apparent blindness, and I will now rant about it….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2O0qX-1S","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}